Ill Communication about Religion

There is a new video that has been floating around facebook and twitter this week. I have seen countless friends and colleagues approvingly posting and commenting on the video. Yet, I find myself troubled that we are sinking into the usual false and (fruitless) dichotomy between “spirituality” and “religion” or “Jesus by himself” and “religion.” I’ll admit that this guy can rap well, but I believe several of his arguments might be ill communication (Hey that’s like rap, right!?) I realize by using ill to mean “whack,” I leave myself open for the same criticism as Will Shortz.

It is unclear what this guy means by the “religion” that Jesus came to abolish. He doesn’t mean the Law, does he? Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law. This is certain by Jesus’ own admission (Matt. 5.17). What does he mean by religion? Does he mean that all religion is in the realm of pretending? It’s just not clear to me.

It’s true that Jesus did receive opposition from religious people, but it doesn’t mean he didn’t practice his religion. He was a faithful Jewish man who participated in Synagogue and observed the holy days of his community. I don’t this guy is making that distinction. As a friend of mine points out: St. Augustine tells us that the word religion comes from the word “ligare” (“connection”/”ligament”). He points out that “Religion is being reconnected with or re-bound to God.” As the same friend says, through Jesus, we are “religioned” to God. And I would add we are “religioned” to each other through our baptism.

It doesn’t work to make Jesus a vigilante superhero out on his own in the name of individuals being saved. Jesus grew up as a part of a community, living into the practices of that community, and when he began his ministry he began to assemble a community around him made up of people who were both part of his community who were Jews, while extending the community to Gentiles. This rapper/poet has divorced Jesus from his community, to those people with whom he practiced his faith.

After making some comments about Christians not needing to be Republicans (no argument there, though I would add nor do they need to be Democrats), he goes on to send up of a volley of the usual indictments of “religion.” Starting wars. Building up infrastructures while people who go hungry. Casting out those people whom Jesus would likely want to be his bosom friends.

This is all true, but it doesn’t mean that people who are “spiritual” or who “just like Jesus” don’t do this either. Rather, he fails to understand the church as the place where sinners come to get sanctified. It should be no surprise that in a motely crew such as this that some trouble might be stirred up. Yet, that is our story. That is who we have been all along, and the good news is that God is always calling us back. But God doesn’t call us back on our own. God calls us back together so that we might experience reconciliation.

The rapper/poets’s next comment really gets my gander. He claims that God calls “religious” people “whores.” While it is true that God does accuse Israel of playing the whore, it isn’t clear that this is because they are “religious.” Rather, God is typically speaking about the worship of other gods or the failure of the Israel to care for the orphan and widow, the most vulnerable among them. On the first count, they are “religioning” themselves to other Gods (Hosea 9.1). On the second, they are failing to “religion” themselves to vulnerable persons (Amos 5.21). But they aren’t whores just because they are part of a worshiping community who follows the Law.

He accuses religious people of failing to fix their problems and masking them. I wasn’t aware that any of us were able to fix our problems on our own. This is why the church was created to be a community. We were created to live in a community of love and forgiveness, where the Holy Spirit and one another can help each other grow in love of God and neighbor. It may be very clever to say that religion is like spraying perfume on a casket, assuming that those who practice the same thing regularly are faking it.

I would argue instead that there are times when we all have trouble holding ourselves up, and it is at that very moment when we need our brothers and sisters the most. We need them to say the words of the creed for us when we can’t say them ourselves. Sometimes, it is all we can do to come and say the words, lay ourselves before God, and let his body and blood enter into us as he draws us into him over and over again.

He criticizes religion for being only “behavior modification.” I don’t think that this is entirely wrong, but I’m not clear about why it is a bad thing. If our beliefs and our actions are intimately tied together, then religion properly practiced finds us living out our faith practically. This seems to be what this guy wants, yet he is bashing it here. What is the “core” he speaks about? Is it just believing the right thing? If it is, he might want to check himself before he wrecks himself because he’s contradicting himself (See that was like Ice Cube).

Seriously. I wouldn't mess with Ice Cube.

He then claims “not to be judgin’,” but then of course he does just that with his “just sayin’.” You are “judgin’” rapper dude. You are doing the same thing that you accuse “religious” people of doing. You are creating insiders and outsiders based on your own set of criteria, rather than the Scripture and Tradition of the Church passed down from the apostles. If I can’t rap and I like the regularity of the liturgy for the changing of my life, I don’t fit your mold.

No real argument with him that the church should be a “hospital for the broken.” Yet, he seems to often equate “religion” with being part of the “church.” He confesses he is one of those who was fake in the church, and acted like a different person each week. Yet, is that part and parcel of being religious? I would argue that “spiritual” people like being spiritual because it doesn’t require them to make any concrete changes in their lives. It sounds like the rapper/poet has been “religioned” to God in a new way. Good for him. But I’m still not sure that means that Jesus doesn’t like religion or the church (which, I’m not sure how or if these equate for this guy). I just don’t think Jesus likes fakers. Nor does the rapper/poet. On this, we agree, but it sounds like we are defining religion differently.

He next returns to the age-old suggestion that before Jesus came, all those poor Jewish people just followed rules all the time and life was terrible for them. Then, Thank God, Jesus came and got rid of all the rules. Except, that as I said, Jesus didn’t come to do away with the Law, he came to fulfill it. He didn’t come to do away with the rules, he came to make it possible for us to follow them. It is nearly anti-Semitic to suggest that all those Jews were miserable rule-followers before Jesus. If that is true, then how does Psalm 119 exist? Over a hundred verses about the beauty of the gift that is God’s Law.

Further, Jesus didn’t get rid of the commands. He made them more demanding. Has this guy read the Sermon on the Mount? Yet, as John Wesley said, Jesus’ commands are covered promises. Whatever Jesus asks us to do, he provides grace sufficient for it to happen. But it is an historical and theological error to suggest that the Jewish faith was a dead faith full of empty rules. Jesus practices a Jewish faith. He did call out some of the practices that had gone awry, but he didn’t get rid of all of them.

The rapper/poet seems to equate “religion” with “hypocrisy.” It is true that Jesus didn’t stand for this. Rapper/poet guy says he loves the church, but it isn’t clear to me that he’s doing a lot to get people to come near the church and be the leaven within. It seems like he’s giving a lot of reasons for folks never even to come in (that rhymed, just saying.)

How is it that religion is a man-made invention? Are the practices of the church what the invention is? He says, “Religion says do,” “Jesus says, done.” It appears that we feel here the eschatological pinch between the “already,” and the “not yet.” Rather than the “either/or” of the rapper/poet, the reality is that we experience it as “both/and.” Jesus says both “do” and “done.” Jesus has won the victory, yet we are responsible for living as he commanded us to through his grace in the mean time. That’s what all those parables are for, like the parable of the talents, the wedding banquet, etc.

He also says religion makes us “slaves” while Jesus sets us “free.” I think Scripture would affirm that actually what happens is that we find out that we were serving the wrong master. That’s why Paul calls himself a slave to Jesus all the time. We aren’t freed to do whatever we want, we’re freed to do the right thing because we are serving him instead of false gods.

“Religion is man searching for God. Christianity is God searching for man.” First of all, what about women, dude? Second, this is a nice contrast, but what exactly does it mean? Where does it come from? It appears religion for this guy has something to do with works righteousness trying to get to God, whereas Christianity is salvation by grace. I’m not sure where his definitions come from, though I think I have heard it expressed this way before (references welcome). However, I don’t think that religion has to mean works righteousness. I prefer to think of grace drawing us in, so that we want to understand and seek after what we believe. St. Anselm called this “Faith seeking Understanding.”

I guess what it comes down to is that this guy did a pretty clever video with a decent rhyme. The only issue is that he falls into his own trap. He spends a lot of time talking about how bad a certain group of people are, the “religious” folk. The problem is that he’s bringing down the same judgment on them that he criticizes them for bringing on others. He also doesn’t seem to have a very good understanding of what religion actually means. Again, it seems to have something to do with works righteousness and hypocrisy, but that doesn’t have to be what religion means. It might just mean practicing what we preach, which rapper/poet guy is all about.

The Church is not perfect, but the Holy Spirit created it and upholds it. Jesus is often painted as a lone ranger destroying a dead Jewish faith, but that is not who he was. He was a faithful Jew, and God’s covenant with the Jews isn’t abolished either. Since this guy likes quoting Romans at the end of his video, he might want to consider flipping to chapter 11.

The last thing I can’t abide by is the smugness. People who hate on what they want to call “religion” always do it in a way that makes them seem better, more insightful, and more faithful that “religious” people. That’s self-righteousness, dude. “Not to be judgin’,” but I’m pretty sure you just rapped something about that being a problem.

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8 Responses to “Ill Communication about Religion”

Here’s my problem with both the video and your well-constructed blog, Alan. Why do we feel compelled to comment or respond to this type of stuff? Is it because we are going to be asked questions about it? Is it because we need to make sure that bad theology and biblical reasoning disguised as hip and cool need to be remarked upon?

It seems to me that there is a bedrock dichotomy between people who will buy this video as good and then there are others who will not. We went to Duke together so I am very much aware that I should be dividing the Christian world but, despite our hesitancy to do so, some dichotomy is real.

I think something like this video hits Facebook and disappears in 3 days or a week…tops! While its content is different, it has the staying power of every youtube video of dudes getting hit in the junk or the funny kid that spoke gibberish after he got out of the dentist’s office.

This guy might even make a talk show. Let him have it and let people post this…then it will be gone.

I’m with you generally. I was resisting saying anything about it because I knew it would be here then gone. The post emerged out of a conversation between my youth director and me because we noticed that many of our youth and former youth were posting the video on their facebook pages. We felt that some sort of response was appropriate, not to simply “correct” them, but to begin a conversation about the merits (which there are some) of the video and the problems (of which there are plenty).

You make some extremely good points and I understand where you’re coming from. This video is far from perfect and there’s a trend among my generation describing themselves as “spiritual” rather than “religious.” And before you judge that, I ask you to think about it. As we grew up we witnessed horrible tragedies that were rooted in religious dispute and hatred.

Many of us grew up with parents who are devote Christians, I know I certainly did. I don’t think the problem comes into play in the home, I think it comes into play outside of it. I was raised to think and reason for myself, I’ve read literature ranging from Plato to Emerson to Nietzsche to the Bible. (And yes I have read the Sermon on the Mount). Many people hesitate to call the Bible literature, but denying that it was written by man, rather than God, is just as ignorant as the Catholic Church holding on to the belief for so long that the world is flat. I don’t mean to offend, and the Bible is no doubt a representation and celebration of God and Jesus. But clinging to the belief that the Bible is the written word of God just does not make sense. Particularly when Christians don’t follow many of the laws set down in the Old Testament. (Which to me seems fairly hypocritical, I’m allowed to eat shellfish but my male best friend isn’t allowed to marry the boy he loves? Who gets to decide what is followed and what isn’t?)

This guy knows and loves Jesus, and what he stands for. I think you’re missing the point of the video. His message, at least as I’ve heard it, is one of love and devotion to what Jesus stood for. Jesus welcomed all people, and yet churches and religion today make some people feel like outcasts. I’ve grown up with kids who spend every sunday in Church and go on trips with Young LIfe groups and yet get drunk and smoke weed and have sex with people they meet at a party and will never see again. I don’t go to Church, I haven’t been in years but my relationship with God is strong. I live a life grounded in love, acceptance, and service. As I would assume from his message this young man does to.

I have grown up in a world where Religion and Church can be, and often are, characterized by judgement and double standards, forgive me if I hesitate to show an institution the same loyalty and love that I show God.

I appreciate your comments. I deal with folks who are where you are on a regular basis in my ministry, and I respect where that comes from. I recognize that say I am not “judging” this dude’s comments would be make the “just sayin'” comment he makes in his own. I recognize that his video comes from an earnest place, but being earnest doesn’t exempt any of us from critique. I know and love Jesus, but it doesn’t mean that I can think whatever I want. Our beliefs shape our actions, or at least they should as the rapper/poet rightly points out. This blog post is generating its own critique of my position which will help to inform and shape my understanding. That is the beauty of the community to which I point in the blog. It is part of being “religioned” to one another. I disagree with the rapper/poet, but I’m not saying he isn’t a Christian.

The church has done plenty of things to make people not want to be a part of it. Yet, I still believe it is the Body of Christ shaped and formed by the Holy Spirit. That gives me hope, even in the midst of the brokenness we experience in it. I’m sorry that you have not experience the Church as the place of love and forgiveness that the Holy Spirit created it to be. Yet, this guy doesn’t welcome all people either. He excludes religious people because he associates them with being fakers and hypocrites.

Also, I’m 29, so my generation has the same trend in it that you’re describing. I’m just disagreeing with the trend.

I definitely agree with you. As someone right on the beginning edge of the millenial generation, I have heard many of my friends speak in these terms, and at one time in my life, I am pretty sure I might have described myself in similar terms. I love the concerns and the implications that you raise in your blog. I also love your idea of sitting down for a drink with this rapper/poet and talking about some of the issues you have identified.

I don’t think it means that to challenge it in my blog is to not take the question seriously. I realize that I got a little snarky in a couple of my comments, but on the whole, I sought to engage the ideas that the rapper/poet raises. I decided it was worth taking seriously because I saw some of the young people in my own church engaging it seriously. The blog emerged out of a genuine need to engage it and the questions that it raises with the youth in my own church. Perhaps what is lacking the most in my blog is that what I write comes in the midst of ongoing conversations I am having with the young people in my own church precisely about the issues you raise in your blog. Thanks for commenting, and thanks for linking to the excellent things you have to say in your blog!